Program

Friday, October 26 2018

Brighter Death Now, Kollaps

Brighter Death Now is the personal project of Roger Karmenik. Brighter Death Now was the original death industrial act, combining whitehouse-style walls of white noise with churning repetitive sounds and obscure subject matter. The imagery involves death, obsession and psychosis. However, Karmanik never misses the opportunity to show the dark humorous side of his personality; his BDN persona switches between petulant spoiled-brat little girl and serial killer at the drop of a hat.

Since 2015’s debut EP Heartworm, Melbourne industrialists Kollaps have refined their restless brand of harsh, post-industrial noise. Recruiting doom/noise veteran Damian Coward [Heirs, High Tension] to bass/percussion/production in 2016, Wade Black (vocals) and Robin W. Marsh (drums, programming) offer up SIBLING LOVERS, an LP that intensifies the conflict between the twin energies of confusion and control at the core of Kollaps’ sound.

The band’s distinctive jarring textures and crude tones are created using re-appropriated waste materials like scrap metal, raw plastics and steel beams. For the band, this isn’t an empty gesture to the industrial genre, it’s a way to literally use the detritus of postmodern society against itself. The band also subvert convention by bypassing the desk and running their vocals directly through amplifiers, thereby injecting a hint of their live intensity into the recording. The overall effect is again of contrast- the band’s raw, provocative voice is amplified by the record’s subtly confident production.

Conceptually, Sibling Lovers follows Heartworm’s exploration of a societal sickness that manifests itself in the debasement of the individual soul. For lyricist Wade Black, Sibling Lovers is introspective and confessional; images of actual physical sicknesses (cancer, colostomy bags, heart worms) are used to make sense a malignant world of slaughterhouses, incest and alcoholism.

But it’s their intensity as performers, rather than their gruesome lyrical content that has built Kollaps a reputation for ferocious live shows and violent performances. Steadily drawing raucous crowds around Australia, alongside some of the best local and intentional underground performers [Brighter Death Now (SE), Trepaneringsritualen (SE), Armour Group (AU), Military Position (AU), Operant (DE).

Ecstasphere is an experimental electronic music project by Ophelia The Suffering. Based on deep, hypnotising rhythmic Noise surfaces and complex beat structures with elements of electronica, IDM and Industrial. Ecstasphere combines this powerful foundation with spherical soundscapes, heart-warming melodies, haunting vocals and various elements of classical music. -- CANCELLED